Nightmares
by CarmineAbattoir
Summary: After 10 y/o Rex has nightmares he seeks assurance that his friends are okay, and Six is bitten by a radio active spider, no, actually he's bitten by a hungry guy. ficlet. T for dark themes. rant at the end. not slash. enjoy.


had to do this, sorry.

* * *

Rex woke screaming in the dark, they were after him again, the faceless people in his nightmares. He looked around wildly before turning on his stomach and sliding out of his bed. Bobo remained asleep despite Rex's earlier screams of terror. Good, the people didn't chase Bobo in his dreams, even the evil dogs didn't chase Bobo.

Rex, still shaking and whimpering a little, made his way to the door of his small room and opened it with his nanites. It was funny because the most advanced technology on the face of the earth couldn't keep a ten and a half year old at bay. He made his way down the dark corridor, Providence had a night life, but that was on the higher parts of the base, down here was where people went for sleeping and naps, as far as he was concerned.

He made his way down the dimly lit halls feeling fine at first, but then it occurred to him that the faceless people could be following him, tracking him with their hell-hounds. He tried to stay calm, listening to the padding of his small feet on the stainless-steel, he hummed an old tune that Holiday had often sang to him when he woke her up with his nightmares. Sometimes, he would go to her lab when she wasn't in the room she slept in, they were right next to each other. In her lab she would be testing things and he would walk in and she would give him a juice box and he would sit and watch her work, sipping quietly and asking an occasional "whatcha doin?" She would respond differently every time, sometimes letting him look through the microscope or in the cabinets. Then she would get tired and clean up and she would carry Rex back to his room. And she would stop by Six's room and they would peek in 'but not wake him up' to see if he was okay and the people hadn't taken him away.

It never mattered how quiet they were because Six could always tell when they were coming. They made a game of it, trying to get as close as possible to Six's room without waking him up, but as soon as they opened the door, Six would say;

"I'm still here Rex." Without even having to look at the door. Then Rex would look up at Holiday with a huge grin of amazement and she would try not to laugh and she would say;

"Night, Six." and Rex would repeat it. And Six would say;

"Night." And they would leave him alone to sleep.

Once Rex was convinced that she and Six would not be overtaken by the people (at least not that night) they walked back to his room and she would sing softly to him until he was asleep again.

Rex made his way to the lab, Holiday wasn't there so he went to her room. He peeked in, remembering it was a lady's room and covered his eyes. Then he remembered he couldn't see if she was okay if he was covering his eyes, so he timidly opened the two fingers over his right eye and closed them again. But that was alright, he had seen what he needed to see. Holiday was fast asleep (and wrapped in her blanket) and Green Day blared from her ipod, and she was not being gotten by the people.

She and the rest of the peons had been playing catchup for the last week on account of an E.V.O indecent, and she was surely very tired so he nodded in approval and slowly shut the door and made his way to check on Six (even if he probably didn't need it, but the people did terrible things in his dreams) so he padded along, not noticing how cold he was until he brushed past an air vent blasting A/C on high.

Only then did he notice how eerie the hallways were. Suddenly he felt as if he was being followed, he looked around terrified of the images in his dreams and began to run.

He wanted to go back to the comfort of Holiday, but he had to warn Six before he was gotted. So he ran fast and hard from the figments of his dreams and their terrible pets until he reached his destination. By the time he reached the door to Six's room tears were streaming down his face. He stopped just short of the room.

The door was ajar. He ran into the room to see an empty (but unmade) bed.

"Six!" he yelled in terror, voice cracking. Six was gotted and it was all his fault! He didn't check on him. Rex sat in the middle of the room and cried softly.

"...Rex...?" Came an exhausted voice from the doorway. The ten-year-old stopped crying, then looked to the door to see a very tired, and heavily bandaged Six standing in the door, yawning into the back of his uninjured hand. Rex remained sitting for almost a full ten seconds before shuffling to his feet and running over to the man and clinging to his black sweat pants. He cried into the fabric.

"I'm still here, Rex." Six informed him tiredly, ruffling the boys hair before walking to his bed and laying down carefully on his back. Rex followed and sat cross-legged on the edge of the bed, still bawling.

"I...Thought they...g-got-ted you." Rex said, wiping his tears away with the back of his small hands. "Cuz...you wasn't...here and then...they would get Holly...and they would get you guys and it would never see you again." His speech was broken by sharp inhales and prematurity, but Six got the drift.

"No, were all fine." He gave Rex's chin a small push up with his bad arm and winced at the motion.

"They would have gotted you for sure this time." Rex muttered.

"Thanks for the support, and here I thought you had faith in me." Six was letting his mask fall, he quickly attempted to regain his composure, but was really tired of it.

"No, the hungry man ate you, so they would have gotted you." Rex said, nodding assuringly. He was referring to the mission they had a week ago, a man with problems had gone E.V.O on them. After the fight, Holiday had said the man was most likely traumatically affected from being starved when he was lost in the tunnels of the city, his nanites had responded to the strong desire for food and gave him the power to catch some. That food had unfortunately been the first thing the E.V.O man had seen after busting out onto the streets. The first thing he saw was Six (Rex had stayed up in the keep, considered to young to be in a fight, but not to young to witness one).

The 'hungry man', as Rex dubbed it, had bitten Six. _Bitten_ him. The E.V.O had had huge jaws and especially sharp teeth, though small, they were hooked at the ends, and he had the mouth of a lamprey. Which was horrifying to Rex. (anyone who had seen a lamprey's mouth would have agreed.)

The lamprey-man would just be a regular case, but under the circumstances,(which was a man driven mad by starvation) was on par with Six and had gotten in a lucky shot. That shot consisted of him biting Six's abdomen, pinning his left arm to his side. The bite was so big the teeth marks had reached all the way to the right kidney. Six, acting calm even under the rib crushing conditions, had spun his katana around in his right hand twice, then jammed it through the cannibalistic mans eye.

When they finally manage to pull the dead E.V.O off of the Agent (it was hard with all the small hooked teeth) the left side of Six's stomach and arm were in bloody shreds. The entire time Rex had stared wide-eyes and petrified in terror as Six gasped for air, choking on his own blood, and the Providence soldiers cut the body of the man off of the jaws (or was it vise versa?) in order to better remove the teeth.

As it was, Rex wouldn't go anywhere near Mell's pool in the petting zoo since the incident. (or anything els with visible teeth, for that matter).

Six hadn't exactly made a full recovery, in his defense, a crushed arm (forget specific bones, it was a miracle he could even keep it) and three broken ribs (as well as two fractured ones) did not offer a promisingly short time in rehab.

The doctors had done all they could, which was a lot considering how advanced Providence tech was. He was expected to make a full recovery with...well..."_moderate"_ scarring. It had been one week since the indecent and Six could already walk (well...hobble, really.) and it was expected another week before he was put on active duty again, though with less life threatening jobs than those on the front lines (aka; paperwork). But that was just how good the med tech was at Prov. and the 'less life-threatening' conditions would be temporary.

And here they sat now, Six a week away from being let off of intense supervision by concerned and curios doctors. Many actually seemed disappointed that Six had killed the 'hungry man'. he would have made for an interesting guinea pig, most of them agreed. In fact, Holiday seemed to be the only one truly pleased that the E.V.O, and not Six, had bit the dust.

"Your probably right." Six muttered. Being in such a physical state as he was, it was easy to become exhausted after preforming a remedial task (such as a trip to the head). "So what was it this time?" He asked, knowing the kid would mumble to him about it anyway.

Rex was silent for awhile, his tears had thinned after he found out Six hadn't been 'gotted', but now they silently increased again.

"You were gotted by the dogs." He mumbled, eyes blurry with tears. "The doggies bit you here." He said poking Six's injured arm and abdomen (to which the agent reacted with a sharp wince). "They had the scary teeth the hungry man had. And the people were laughing."

"Still?" Six inquired, closing his eyes and turning his head to the wall while trying with all his might to fall asleep.

"Yeah...they were...being mean to Holly. She didn't like it so she yelled at them and they stopped for a second..." Rex looked at him with eyes full of tears. Six was still turned to the wall with his eyes closed, but could feel Rex staring a hole into the back of his head. Suddenly, the ten-year-olds mood changed entirely. "What do you taste like, Six?" He asked, cocking his head to one side like a puppy.

The question took the wounded man by surprise. "What?" Was all he could say.

"You must taste good, otherwise the hungry man wouldn't have eated you." He said in a tone that said it was a simple question. But Six wasn't about to try to explain the laws and meanings of starvation and cannibalism to an amnesiac 10 year old who couldn't tie his shoes. At least, not at this time of night. "I bet you taste like chicken." Rex said matter-of-factly. Six could hardly stifle a laugh and ended up chuckling which took the E.V.O-child by surprise. Rex wiped his nose on his sleeve again and giggled until Six twitched in pain.

They remained silent for awhile and Six was teetering on consciousness before Rex talked again. The agent nearly kicked himself for forgetting about the boy, nearly.

"I taste like cotton candy." Rex informed him like it was a well known fact.

"How so?" He asked, trying hard this time not to laugh, but even he couldn't mask the amusement in his tone. that would have to change soon.

"Because I'm so sweet and tasty, duh." Rex smiled, then frowned. "But that means that the next time we meet a hungry man, he might eat me..."

"I wont let him eat you." Six said nonchalantly, but there was incredible strength behind the statement. Rex looked up and did the head thing again.

"Good. Then I wont let him eat _you_." Rex nodded in approval. "Deal?"

"Deal." Six said. Rex nodded again and after that he was quiet. The agent finally managed to drift off to sleep and so did Rex, but not before shutting down the alarm clock (the glowing numbers distracted him from his sleep).

Six did wake up once during the night, but briefly. All he recalled was the feeling of a small lump curled up in the crook of his broken arm, alas it didn't hurt much at all. In fact, it was welcoming, a little ball of heat in the otherwise freezing wing (the A/C was on full blast). He fell quickly back to sleep.

Rex had no nightmares for the remainder of the night, in fact, he had never slept better. The child had no real dreams, but felt protected and warm through the night. It helped ease his fear of the faceless people and their terrible hell-hounds, it coaxed them into oblivion and closed the door after them.

The next morning Holiday wen't to pay Six a visit, letting Rex sleep in was something she had started doing since Six had been wounded (it wasn't like the child could train under her, besides it wouldn't make a difference, Six wouldn't force the kid to do anything he couldn't, and if he couldn't walk, then...) and Rex wouldn't go anywhere near anything with teeth in the petting zoo.

What she found surprised and enthralled her to the core. Rex lay curled up next to Six, a look of pure content on his little face. Six snored softly in his sleep, obviously not bothered by his one-time bunk-mate.

She turned her head out the door and shut it and managed to get to her lab before she couldn't contain herself any longer and burst out laughing, earning her strange looks from the peons already there. She took no notice of them and laughed until tears came to her eyes, she wiped them away, calming herself to a smile. It was humorous, no doubt (She even considered taking a photo for various...experiments.(Blackmail)) but she banished the thought from her head, and focused on what was important' they both looked at peace, more so than she had ever seen them, especially through the stress of the last week and with Rex's nightmares coming more frequently than desired.

She smiled, getting ready to cram all her makeup work into the time frame between now and her lunch break. Yup, things were starting to look up, she could feel it.

_'Everything is going to be okay', _she thought to herself as she began to hum the tune to a Green Day song that was stuck in her head. She got to work.

* * *

yeah. thats it...its just a reference from something in Future Rex (my other fic) I thought I could write something from it *looks at word count* over 2,600!1! I broke my rule (seriously, I wasn't lying when I said I can't end a chap after 2000 words, I mean look at the ending. Thats so dumb.

I plan to draw some shiz from this BTW. nothing incredible, just something to (hopefully) help me finalize this ficlet (I feel as if it just isn't done, you know?)

R&R? O-O


End file.
